Reading Response: "Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet"

The reading was focusing on all types of information that is misleading over the internet. In the first few pages of the reading it was talking about counterfeit websites. This is one of the major problems with online research; there are so many fake websites out there, which also have very misleading information. Furthermore in the article it talks about the Martin Luther King website, which if you click on any of the materials would lead you to some white supremacist type websites. This is a counterfeit website that people would go to and not find the information that they were looking to research. Another one that was spoken about in the article was the MaKah whaling tribe of Washington. They were given the right to whale by the US government and within days there were sites up that were counterfeit, and lead people to places that talked about how whaling was a terrible act, and how it was unjust. The next major topic that was covered in the article was suspicious websites. These are websites that are more properly classified as hate sites. There are many of these types of sites on the internet. The news is the next part covered in the article. The article talks about how the news can mislead anyone. I believe that this is so true because if people see it on TV or they read it on the internet, then it has to be true. This is completely untrue, and in the article they talk about how in one county they put two hundred orange vests on deer, and anyone that brought an orange vest back got a prize. Well this story was covered by ESPN, and other top news organization, well it was a hoax. The article continues to talk about disinformation, hoaxes, parodies, September 11th hoaxes, and other items dealing with the internet and how misleading it really can be.

I believe that the article was a good read because there are really people out there that do this stuff on a daily basis. I think that the money that people collected in the aftermath of September 11th is ridiculous and should have to be paid back, or given to the victims’ families. I also believe that most of the information on the web is biased in some way or another. I believe that news organizations should have to be set to a standard; they blow many things out of proportion in relation to news and other media that they cover. This was a great article and it really laid out some of the more important ideas of the misleading internet.

News Article #1

Itzkoff, David. "Plans for Print-Free Oxford Dictionary Aren’t Fully Defined." The New York Times. 30 Aug. 2010. Web. 30 Aug. 2010.


In the article published by The New York Times, they are talking about the plans for a third edition of the Oxford Dictionary and the possibility of the dictionary being published over the internet. The first two editions of the dictionary, which were published in 1928 and 1989 respectively, were published in paper format. The chief executive of the Oxford University Press said in an interview with The Sunday Times of London that, “the market for print dictionaries is just disappearing”(Itzkoff). In the article they didn’t say that they would for sure be publishing the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary on the internet or not, but it seems that they are leaning towards that decision based on the lack of interest in the paper or book editions that are being sold. There is a long time before the decision has to be made because according to the article, it is going to be more than a decade before the third edition will be published. There are eighty lexicographers currently working on the edition, they are nearly twenty-eight percent complete, but they have yet to set a completion date. So Oxford has a long time before they have to make the crucial decision, and drift away from the norm.

I think that it would be good for the Oxford Dictionary to be published in a web type format. This would make it a lot easier for them to reach out to certain customers, who just aren’t into sitting down looking through a dictionary to find the word or words that they are search for. With the development of cells phones that get online, and the many types of other deceives that can go online, I think that it would be best if Oxford published their third edition with online capabilities. Many of my friends, which are mostly college students, all go online to online dictionaries to find the definitions that they are trying to define. In conclusion I think Oxford will publish their third edition online. Doing so would allow them to reach out to more customers, and ultimately help them raise profits.